Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

89

Pavel Buchnevich

St. Louis Blues Left Wing

44 per cent of his shot attempts from inside 20 feet, and the ice he was on scored ten goals fewer than the chances predicted.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2016-17NYR4181220+6131005514.513:16
2017-18NYR74142943-32050413610.315:01
2018-19NYR64211738-101370111917.615:10
2019-20NYR68163046+22440114810.816:56
2020-21NYR54202848+124213212016.718:44
2021-22STL73304676+293482319915.118:18
2022-23STL63264167+143680212321.119:27
2023-24STL80273663+34882520713.019:49
2024-25STL76203757+102320314513.819:02
2025-26 so far
Career593182276458+6325344721125214.517:30

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

20 goals and 37 assists in 76 games — 57 points at 19:02 a night, plus-10, with 23 penalty minutes on 145 shots.

52.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 75th percentile. His ice went 38-35 against an expectation of 47.83-43.32 — ten goals of scoring missing and eight fewer conceded, on a line that controlled the play.

The Finesse Game

145 attempts at a median of 22 feet with 44 per cent from inside 20 and only 13 per cent from beyond 40 — one of the least perimeter profiles on the roster. He shoots from the house, converting at 13.8 per cent.

37 assists says the passing is the equal of the shot. He works below the goal line, he protects the puck with his body, and he finds the man arriving late from the point.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 196 and he plays heavier than that. He wins pucks on the wall, he goes to the front of the net, and he is difficult to move once he has established position.

23 penalty minutes in 76 games. He is not an agitator and he does not answer much; the physicality is entirely about possession.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick of the Rangers in 2013 who did not leave Russia until he was 21, and 593 games and 458 points into a career with a plus-63 across it.

He is 30, he was acquired from New York in 2021, and he signed a six-year extension in 2024. He has scored 20 or more goals in six of the last seven seasons.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,077 minutes

Expected goals
52.5%
76th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.7%
39th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 38 for, 35 against. Expected: 47.8 and 43.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
80th
Numbers
76th

The two rank him within 4 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 78 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 1077 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
STL took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.5% — 1.4 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,077 minutes at five-on-five — 72nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Robert Thomas57.3%41.3%52.5%
Jake Neighbours52.2%52.7%46.9%
Colton Parayko51.9%52.9%48.8%

57.3% together, 41.3% for him apart and 52.5% for Thomas apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

212 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 20 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 44% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.